31 new of 85 responses total.
Pretty much, yep. Silverman's used to have several dozen varieties of hamburger, including the dreaded icer-cream-sundae burger: a hamburger with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce as condiments. I had one once. (I didn't put the pickle on the burger too, though, as that would have been gross. >8)
<abchan makes a face> I like burgers and I like sundaes. But not at the same time. Although they do all end up in your stomach, my stomach can handle the combo. My tastebuds don't want to.
Mollie Katzen has a new cookbook out, _Vegetable Heaven_, and she will be at Borders (Ann Arbor) on Thursday, November 6, 7:30 p.m. to give a short talk and sign books. Mollie wrote a number of wonderful vegetarian cookbooks, including some of the earliest Moosewood cookbooks.
Ooo, yummy! I will plan to be there. Thanks for the news!
Mary, John, Jan and I were there to hear Mollie Katzen speak. But Mollie Katzen was sick, so she only signed books and didn't speak to the group. Ouch -- doing book tours is rough.
But I did take the time to look through her new coobook and it does like like a nice one. I'll probably buy it at some point if the couple of recipes I wrote down come out.
The closest thing i have to a regular cookbook is the New Doubleday Cookbook. Big, fairly current, and full of good information. However....it contains *way* too many bombs. Times for hard-boiling eggs that would only work out in Death Valley or with a pressure cooker. Recipes that need 3 times as much of their main ingredient (& it's clear from context that it's NOT a typo). What is other people's experience with this sort of thing? Do serious cookbooks try to pack in more recipes than they can try or proof-read?
My recipe for foolproof hard boiled eggs: Eggs Water Add eggs to cold water. Put on heat. When liquid boils turn off the gas and cover. Let stand for 25 mins. When timer goes off, peel under cold water. Works every time.
We don't have gas. The timing is different with electric, might be only 15 minutes. We soak for a few minutes in cold water to loosen the shell. We cover it before turning on the heat, it conserves energy and time, and keeps the place from steaming up. If you add purple onion skins the eggs turn brown.
For good basic cookbooks, stick with Joy of Cooking or Better Homes and Gardens. And before you buy one, borrow it from your library and actually cook from it for a few weeks.
Joy of cooking is wonderful -- but it's not really a good starter book for a new cook. Much of the food is exotic and the authors tend to assume your have a maid to clean up after you and a staff of servents to serve your guests. ;) Then again, I've never had a dismal failure from it.
You can never fail from Betty Crocker...but go to the library sale and buy a copy from the 70's ...they are much better then the new ones...
I agree. Betty's recipes are exceedingly well tested. And they are reputed to have been tested with each ingredient doubled and halved, to make sure that even if you mess up, the results are still likely to be edible.
Another one worth considering is James Beard's American Cookery.
resp:64 resp:68 agreed and agreed but resp:65 not agreed. I had a friend tell me about the Joy of Cooking series: Ed 1, I think was put out by the mother, Ed 2 was the mother and daughter, and Ed 3 was the grandson, I think. Edition 2, from what I had been told, is the easiest to work with. Some of the recipes are indeed exotic, but.. if you have some very rudimentary skills and follow the recipes carefully, you should be fine. Edition 3 assumes the reader knows nothing about cooking and goes into a lot of detail. It wasn't recommended to me because apparently, it can't be pragmatically used on a daily basis. May be more of a textbook approach. void recommended _Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen_ to jep in an agora item a while back, and since Julie and I bought the book a while back, I'd have to say I second the motion. This looks like an excellent book for folks that have had very little exposure to cooking.
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_Dad's Own Cook Book_ is another great cookbook primer. Sadly, it came to us from my own father. He really can't cook to save his life-- he only does a few dishes like spaghetti and such. Mom bought it in hopes he'd learn more, but it didn't work, apparently.
Thanks for the info on the three editions. I have not seen 3.
I think I've only got the second edition as well, and I didn't get mine that long ago. Interesting. I'll have to take another look at it when I get home.
Hmmm, the 3rd ed. was very, very recent. I've seen it, but didn't take the good time to read through it. It belonged to the friend of mine. I think most people refer to 2nd ed.
The 3rd edition isn't anywhere near as cool as the earlier ones. I'd avoid it.
What don't you like about it? I still haven't seen a copy.
It isn't as quirky, and it focuses on modern trends. They've taken out (or modified for the low fat, high carb crowd) a lot of the classic recipes, supposedly, as well as some of the obscure stuff -- stuff I'll probably never use, like how to prepare a grouse, but that I'd be glad I have somewhere if it ever comes up. I've only glanced at it, but the reviews I've read are pretty universally negative when compared to the original.
I just checked it out on Amazon -- it's got its supporters, too. You might look at the reviews.
From what my friend told me, 3rd ed. assumes you know nothing about cooking and gets very elaborate from there. He recommended 2nd ed. just because of that-- if you can follow a recipe, it will have most of what you need.
The reviews on Amazon are pretty interesting. It really sounds like the 3rd ed. isn't a substitute for the 2nd, but it's a good supplement.
That may well be.
I'm definitely a big fan of the obscure game recipes in the 2nd ed. It's always good to know that I remember how to cook beaver tail properly. But realistically, I don't think I'll ever need to know that. But I do like the focus in the 2nd ed. on "ordinary" recipes. I can find out all I need to know about trendy ingredients or exotic food from magazines and whatnot. Now I'm really curious.
That's kind of my feeling. It sounds like they added a lot of trendy stuff at the expense of depth on the classic material. I certainly don't mind recipes for Thai or Mexican food -- but when I want them, I'd prefer to go to a specialist cookbook that will have the depth I want on those specific cuisines. I wouldn't go to Joy of Cooking for that.
Yesterday, I got _The_Magic_of_Fire_, even though I don't have a fireplace, after hearing about it on "The Splendid Table" on WUOM a few weeks back. I don't know when I'll get to try the recipes, so far it's been fun to read.
mentioned somewhat in another item, thinking about buying a Frugal Gourmet cookbook, but not sure which one?
You have several choices: